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Okay, now you're asking for it.

Washington is going ahead with a planned military drill in Western Ukraine just hours after Russian president Vladimir Putin was able to convince pro-Russia separatists to stand down in their fight with the Ukrainian military in the eastern oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk. This military drill does not bode well for Friday's cease-fire discussion in Minsk, Belarus between the Ukrainian government and the separatist leaders who will demand autonomy from Kiev.

According to a Reuters report on Tuesday, preparations are under way for a joint military exercise this month with more than 1,000 troops from the United States and its allies shipping into Ukraine for the roughly three year old Rapid Trident program, part of Ukraine's military tilt towards NATO.

The Rapid Trident program is a joint military exercise between the U.S. Army, NATO and the Ukrainian military. It's been on going since around 2011. New joint exercises are scheduled for this month. Photo by Vladimir Tretyakov

The decision to go ahead with the Rapid Trident exercise Sept. 16-26 is seen as a sign of the commitment of NATO states to support non-NATO member Ukraine. The annual exercise was initially scheduled for July, but was pushed back due to the ongoing crisis in the east.

Ukraine's military has been battling with separatist groups in cities close to the Russian border, where nearly half of the population are ethnic Russians. The exchange of fire power between both sides has been on going since March.

The political tug of war has one side wanting greater autonomy from Kiev -- which means closer ties to Moscow -- and the other side wanting to maintain territorial integrity, with Kiev the indisputable power source of the Ukrainian government.

Looked at another way, Kiev wants Donetsk and Luhansk to become autonomous republics about as much as Moscow wants Ukraine to join NATO.

Of course, Ukraine is no stranger to NATO, much to Russia's chagrin. Russia sees itself as the true power behind the throne in Ukraine, an old bread basket state and military base for Russia for centuries.

Ukraine contributes to NATO’s missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo. The formal basis for NATO-Ukraine relations is the 1997 Charter on a Distinctive Partnership, which established the NATO-Ukraine Commission, and the Declaration to Complement the Charter, signed in 2009. Rapid Trident was launched shortly after with the U.S. Army taking the lead.

On Wednesday, just hours after Putin managed to convince pro-Russia separatists to cease fire, President Obama said in Estonia ahead of the upcoming NATO Summit that the U.S. and NATO would not allow a foreign country to encroach on its friends. He said this after blaming Moscow for the political turmoil in Ukraine. He was a hair away from saying that the U.S. would protect Ukraine from a Russian military attack.

On balance, it appears Russia has done its part in orchestrating the slow Balkanization of the country.

On March 17, it annexed the Crimean peninsula, then an autonomous region in the Black Sea. The Crimean government, made up of mostly ethnic Russians, held a referendum for secession when Kiev voted to eliminate the Russian language from official, government communications.

The Russian economy has been sanctioned by both the U.S. and Europe ever since.

This likely led to economic contraction in the third quarter and possibly a recession, said Jan Dehn, an emerging markets economist for the Ashmore Group in London.

Markets in Russia actually rose today thanks to the cease fire, but all eyes will be on the Friday meeting in Minsk between the two warring parties.